The president of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Prof Ishaq Akintola has criticised the West Africa Examination Council for allowing the May/June exam timetable to clash with Friday prayers.

The 2018 May/June Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) timetable recently released by the exam body states that candidates will write Chemistry paper from 2 pm to 5 pm on Friday, April 20, while Muslims' Friday prayer usually holds between 1 pm and 3 pm.

Reacting to the exam schedule, Akintola said the timetable was an “injustice” against Muslims, who according to him had become “endangered species”

Akintola said Muslim leaders discussed fixing of examinations during Jumaat Prayer with WAEC in 2016 and 2017.

“Until something starts happening, until the Muslims start disrupting WAEC examination until Muslims start tearing WAEC examination materials, that is when the government will start paying attention.

“WAEC is playing games and they want the Muslims to make noise every year, the council is deliberately provoking Muslims and it has continued to show itself as a consistent anti-Muslim institution,” he said.

Akintola said WAEC is an oppressor because it does not want Muslim candidates to worship their God as stated in the constitution.

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“Section 38 subsection 1 and 2 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s constitution stipulates that there must be freedom of worship and WAEC fixing an examination for 2 pm simply means that WAEC does not want Muslims to worship, therefore WAEC is an oppressor and we are ready for them.

“The Muslims in every vicinity of the exam can mobilise on the day of the examination and go to the schools which the exams will be written, we are sending this warning to WAEC not to dare it,”

The Muslim group president, therefore, concludes that fixing a major subject at Jumaat time is “illegal, unconstitutional and unlawful”

UNIPORT Chief Imam also reacts

Also reacting to the exam timetable, the chief Imam of the University of Port Harcourt, Abdul Razaq Kilani said he expects WAEC to be diligent to identify the subject to be scheduled for the exam on Friday.

“WAEC is an international organization, one would have expected that they take due diligence by identifying subjects that they could put on Friday which are not core subjects like carpentry, textiles among others that are not offered by a large number of candidates. So putting Chemistry there is wrong,” Kilani said.

However, according to the timetable, the examination is scheduled to start on March 27 and end on May 15, 2018.